


how do i let go?

by moonlapse



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki Disease, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Unrequited Love, i wrote this at 2 am please forgive me, lapslock, so if you're not into that maybe don't read this, this entire fic is written in lowercase
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 07:15:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9537542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlapse/pseuds/moonlapse
Summary: you make flowers grow inside of my lungsand although they are beautiful, i can't breathe





	

they say that letting go is the best cure. it doesn't hurt so much. your mind is free from its chains, and your lungs are free from the petals. surgery is expensive and when you lose your petals, you lose your emotions too. soonyoung had heard too many stories of people who couldn't love after the surgery. but if you can let go once, who says you can't do it again?

but how does one let go? how can you stop feeling when it's all you know how to do? how do you stop hurting when they don't love you back? the harder you fall, the quicker the petals spread. the more you love, the quicker you die. once you fall in too deep, it might be too hard to pull yourself out. soonyoung had learned this the hard way. he had never meant to fall in love with lee jihoon, not like that - he just needed a good friend, and jihoon had been that person to him. until jihoon met seungcheol and soonyoung began to cough up blue petals.

he could have sworn he never loved jihoon, but he knew denying it wouldn't exactly do much for him; he did love jihoon, he'd loved jihoon ever since they met, his feelings for the boy had never changed. so why did he only cough up the petals now? if nothing had changed since the beginning, why did this only start when jihoon began loving seungcheol?

he realized it sooner or later, once his floor was already covered in blood stains and blue petals tainted red. jihoon had loved him too, once upon a time. they had loved and never even noticed. or maybe jihoon did, but soonyoung never considered the idea until choi seungcheol came around.

the bastard. this was his fault. he was the reason jihoon had stopped loving soonyoung, the reason his lungs were filling up with anemones. that is, after all, what they were - soonyoung had to research them. anemones, to represent fading hope, giving up. so now, both his heart and his lungs were being filled with a sense of hopelessness.

jihoon loved seungcheol more than he had ever loved soonyoung. jihoon loved soonyoung still, but never in the same way. their love for each other was different - appreciation and infatuation were not similar enough to make their relationship a two-sided one. and it might prove fatal for him now.

seokmin, another close friend, was coming over nearly every day to check up on him. after hearing him cough up petals in the bathroom one day he had merely assumed soonyoung was sick and he had sent him home - except that two weeks later, he must have realized it was beginning to become a usual occurrence. soonyoung would only tell him that it was an unfortunately long case of stomach flu, though seokmin insisted it must not be healthy to throw up so often. soonyoung couldn't bring himself to tell seokmin the truth.

and jihoon, he wasn't oblivious either. jihoon had always been empathetic towards soonyoung, he'd always been good at seeing through masked emotions. he just somehow _knew_ , every time, that there was something wrong. this case was no different.

"are you sure you're doing okay?" he would ask, and soonyoung would always reply with something along the lines of "why wouldn't i be?" even though the lies rolling off his tongue killed him. then jihoon would sigh, and tell him that if anything was wrong, they could always talk about it. soonyoung still insisted that he was perfectly fine. after all, what good would it do to say anything? jihoon still wouldn't love him. he'd probably get even farther away from him. the petals would spread faster.

but then again, it would all happen quicker. soonyoung couldn't get a surgery. was it his own stubbornness that refused it, or that he just loved jihoon so much that he didn't want to let go? he hated this feeling, wanted to get away from it, but he just couldn't. he was going to die if he couldn't let go, and that couldn't be helped.

_how do i let go?_

seokmin busted into the apartment one day, when soonyoung refused to let him in. he was the first one to witness the blue and red that coated the apartment. soonyoung had thrown up more than usual that day, and he hadn't had time to clean up before seokmin came over.

soonyoung watched seokmin open his mouth wordlessly, the first time he'd ever seen his friend this speechless. he couldn't bring himself to look into seokmin's eyes, so instead he just stared at the anemone petals on his floor. he could still feel seokmin's shocked gaze burning through him.

"you never told me..." seokmin choked out after a minute, a slight tremor in his voice. "is this what you've been throwing up all this time?" soonyoung could hardly bring himself to nod, let alone speak. seokmin hesitated for a moment before speaking again. "who... who is it?"

soonyoung sniffled quietly. "jihoon," he murmured, and when seokmin didn't answer, he spoke louder. "it's jihoon."

seokmin asked too many questions at once. how long, when he's getting surgery, if he's okay, if jihoon knows. and he replied; two weeks, never, no, and no. it was hurting his head, and his heart, to answer. but when seokmin spoke again, his voice was laced with anger, surprising him.

"you're not getting surgery?" he made it sound like soonyoung was being stupid, which only made him feel worse. "you're going to die, soonyoung. you have to get surgery."

"i... can't," he choked out, and seokmin huffed. when soonyoung managed to look up at seokmin, there was even more rage in his eyes than pity.

"yes, you can," he said, "don't be an idiot, soonyoung. you're just going to let yourself die like that? and all for someone who will never even love you!"

the words stung, and it seemed like seokmin realized it. he muttered something under his breath, something soonyoung couldn't quite catch, and raced out the door without another word.

soonyoung cried again that night, even worse than usual. he hadn't let the truth reach his heart until someone had said it. jihoon would never love soonyoung. jihoon was too in love with choi seungcheol to even think about it. jihoon couldn't love and soonyoung couldn't let go. he was too far in now to try escaping his fate.

most patients will have roughly thirty days before the petals completely fill their lungs and they suffocate, according to the internet. soonyoung should only have another two weeks left of this. then suffocation, then death, then the afterlife, if that even existed. would he just be wandering around in darkness after death, spending eternity with only his memories? would he be sent to hell for suicide? that was nearly what it was at this point. he could still live. he could have the surgery. he couldn't do it. suicide was a sin. sinners are sent to hell.

maybe he'd be reincarnated as something simple, like a cat or rabbit. he wouldn't want to live the life of a human again - having to experience the same pains that he had felt in this life was too much of a risk to take. human life was pitiful. anything but that.

he could almost say he was scared of death. but, even if he was frightened by the prospect, humanity must have him more afraid, right? after all, he was more willing to leave this world than to stay in it. at least, not without jihoon.

surgery meant losing all feelings for jihoon. they alter your brain, that part of your brain that feels, and they morph it into a monster of a thing, so that you can never love again. and losing the ability to love, that just wasn't worth it for soonyoung. it shouldn't be worth it for anyone, he thought, love is such a precious thing. losing it would make everything so pointless. there was no life without love, not really. not even just romantic love, but platonic love. love for your friends, your family. it was worth so much to soonyoung.

no matter how he tried to explain this to seokmin, he refused to understand. every time they spoke now, seokmin spent it trying to convince soonyoung that this was the wrong thing to do. eventually, soonyoung stopped answering his calls. he didn't open the door for him anymore.

if you waited too long for the surgery, the doctors wouldn't be able to do anything. there would be too many petals, growing too fast to take them all out. so, it was now or never, and soonyoung made his decision.

never.

//

he texted jihoon to tell him that he had suddenly gotten pretty sick, so it was best if they stayed away from each other a while. it wasn't a complete lie. but when jihoon texted back two hours later, complaining he had something important to tell soonyoung, the little bit of hope remaining in him boosted. he could imagine jihoon telling him he had broken up with his cheollie, that he realized his love for soonyoung. he could picture a day that wouldn't be spent throwing up blood and flower petals. so he told jihoon to meet him at the park outside of his apartment.

the first thing he noticed was choi seungcheol, who walked hand in hand with jihoon. his stomach clenched at the sight. he knew it wasn't fair to hate seungcheol. the man had done nothing wrong. but this was still his fault.

"soonyoung! soonyoung!" jihoon called, his voice chirpier than his usual cynical tone. the two rushed to meet soonyoung, who was sat on a bench watching kids run around on a small wooden playground.

the second thing he noticed was the matching diamond rings on their hands.

he slapped a hand over his mouth as he started to gag, starting to run and barely making it to a nearby bush as he started to spit out blue petals. there was a lot this time, petal after petal after petal, like he was coughing up an entire bouquet. the bush quickly became covered in blue and red.

hand held over his mouth to hide the blood, he turned back, trying to hide it sight from jihoon, who was rushing over to soonyoung with concern etched into his face.

"i said i was sick," soonyoung said, voice muffled by his hand, and motioned for jihoon to turn and walk back to the bench. "i'll be fine, hoon."

he knew that if jihoon noticed the blood, he would have said something. when the boy merely obeyed, turning back to the bench, soonyoung splashed a bit of his water bottle on his face, washing off any blood that was left, and bit his lip so he wouldn't cry.

he let jihoon spill the news to him, and he said the words, the ones that made soonyoung's heart shatter.

"we're engaged!"

and when soonyoung cried and jihoon asked what was wrong, soonyoung said he was happy for them, although jihoon didn't seem to believe it. and when seungcheol patted his head to comfort him he ducked away, not wanting this man, this killer, to touch him. and when he felt sick to his stomach again, he excused himself and ran back to his apartment. and when he had opened the door, he spent ten minutes coughing blood and anemones into the toilet, until he felt dizzy. and for a moment he thought that this was it, this was where it all ended, but he found himself in his bed sobbing for yet another night.

he almost wished that it had been the end.

whatever hope he used to have had left with the anemone petals. jihoon couldn't love him now. and besides, the petals were far too many now; even surgery wouldn't do anything for him. he didn't have long left.

in his last days, he wrote letters. one for his parents, to tell them what had happened - he hadn't even seen them in years. they were supposed to have a reunion this summer. one for seokmin, to tell him sorry for not getting the surgery, sorry for cutting you off, thank you for being my friend. one to his high school counselor, for teaching him that even if life doesn't always have a happy ending, you need to make the most of it. one for every friend he's met since high school, anyone who's stuck by him. and one for jihoon.

_jihoon,_

_i had always loved you, since we met in high school. you did too, for a while, didn't you? but you met choi seungcheol and that changed everything for you. he makes you so happy, jihoon, you're brighter than i've ever seen when you're with him. i hope you're both always happy together._  
_we had always been a perfect pair. the sun and the moon, the earth and the sky, the brain and the heart. my dad always told me how opposites attract, and i figured it was just destiny that i had met you. i still think it was. but when you stopped loving me, i still never stopped loving you._  
_i'm sorry that i won't get to attend your wedding. i know you had always imagined us as the best man at each other's marriages. i wish that could have happened._  
_tell seungcheol it wasn't his fault._

_soonyoung._

he sent the letters off to their addresses. his parents lived in another country - they wouldn't receive it until after he was gone. but the others would get theirs quicker. soonyoung almost hoped that jihoon's would be lost and never found.

//

there was an ominous sensation that loomed over him when he woke up two days later. in the morning he ate a bowl of cheerios - always his favourite breakfast, something his mother would give him when he felt sad. he stared out the window for longer than usual, watching the familiar city buzz to life as everyone's normal days started. he went through his old photo albums - pictures from high school, of him and all his friends, jihoon, seokmin, and others like seungkwan and hansol. he had heard that the two had gotten together recently; they had always been a good match for each other. he hoped they were happy too.

then he went through all of his and jihoon's texts, from their most recent all the way to the beginning.

_hi, is this soonyoung? i'm jihoon, the one you're doing your history project with._

_yeah, that's me. i'm bad at history... you might have to lead this one._

_ugh. fine._

the tears in his eyes had been there since he woke up, but now they were flooding out. and he gagged, and this terrible feeling came over him, because he knew that this would be the last time he would see this place. he didn't bother going to the bathroom as he puked out petal after petal, until blue and red lined the carpet floor, and suddenly he could hear a faint, panicked voice from outside of the door.

"soonyoung? are you there?" jihoon called, and when soonyoung didn't reply, he started to scream.

"soonyoung! open the door! oh my god, soonyoung, please, just open the door! i need to know if you're okay! p-please," he said, and then there was sobbing, and soonyoung cried with jihoon until he couldn't breathe any longer and his vision faded to black.

_this is how i let go._


End file.
